old container soil

wcox59April 24, 2012

I have a zillion pots large and small with year old potting coil which I believe is all peat based as that appears that is all avaialble in my area, (nebraska). Since I no longer have any place to dump out the pots can I use the same old potting soil? And should I add any thing like peat or compost to "refresh" the soil? Want to keep it light of course casue i move the pots around alot.

Some of the popular peat-lite mixes are real nice out of the bag but they begin to collapse within a few months. If it's been used for a full season (or year) I wouldn't recommend reusing it for your containers.

I have tried several ways to rehabilitate used potting mix. Starting with bark based mixes and screening out the fines, adding new bark and dolomite. The result was less than satisfactory, so now I bite my lip and use only new mix in my containers. Al